Freight Cars On Home Roads

Looks like the Santa Fe and GN were two of the few railroads to have more of it's on cars on line than foreign. I would assume that was good as they were using thier own equipment instead of paying per diem on foreign carriers equipment. ( maybe the shipper paid the per diem) The SP was just the opposite.

The major coal hauler L&N had a lot of thier own as I'd bet a lot was company coal hoppers.

Same with the DMIR, almost exclusivly company ore cars.

Dan

I find interesting the stats on percent bad order.
B&O 14.7%
DL&W 10.0%
PRR 15.7%

The only western road that was high was WP at 14.7%

GN was only at 3.8%

Interesting that the two US Steel roads were at 1.9% (DM&IR), and 1.8% (EJ&E)

Regards,
GNNPNUT

I was surprised not to see N&W on there. Any other "BIG" name RRs missing? I realize this was just a sample, but seems like N&W would be one to look at, unless the percentage of home road cars was so great for N&W (I recall reading something like 80%) that it wasn't worth adding them to the list.

quote:

Any other "BIG" name RRs missing?

C&NW, Monon, NP, Virginian....

quote:

I find interesting the stats on percent bad order.
B&O 14.7%
DL&W 10.0%
PRR 15.7%

GN was only at 3.8%

That is very interesting, especially considering the GN box car and reefer fleets in 1950 were almost entirely composed of wood sheathed cars.

Also worth noting are the percentages of Bad Ordered locomotives.

B&O 29.1%
DL&W 25.8%
PRR 25.9%

And the PRR lists no locomotives as stored. It looks like they had a bunch of broken down locomotives on hand and none available for a sudden traffic increase. Just a few months after this table was compiled the Korean war started.

By contrast the ATSF had only 11.4% of locomotives in bad order with 238 stored. The GN had 13.7 percent of locomotives in bad order with 89 in storage. Since the Santa Fe and GN were the No. 1 and No. 2 FT customers with a policy of early Dieselization those stored locomotives were likely relatively modern steam locomotives that would come in handy with the coming surge of war material headed to Pacific Coast ports.

Thanks for posting Bob. This is good stuff.

it shouldn't come as a surprise the high percentage of bad orders on the PRR. with well over 200,000 cars on the road, far higher than any other railroad, the B.O. percentage will naturally be higher. as for the 25% B.O. of motive power, that IS an interesting statistic worth following up.

Funny that CRP has 15.7 per cent bad ordered. Had to be tax implications of having that many cars bad ordered in the PA fleet since the CNJ had only 7.7 per cent bad ordered.

Or did the Ashley shop folks need work and the car knockers bad ordered eveything that came in?

I need to research what constitutes a Bad Order, are there different levels?

Would rule books have an explanation? I have a couple of them around somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by Bob Delbridge:
I was surprised not to see N&W on there. Any other "BIG" name RRs missing? I realize this was just a sample, but seems like N&W would be one to look at, unless the percentage of home road cars was so great for N&W (I recall reading something like 80%) that it wasn't worth adding them to the list.

None of the so-called "Pocahontas" coal roads (C&O, N&W, VGN) are on there, nor is the Clinchfield.

It's probably because they would have had a humongous percentage of home road cars on line, and probably extremely low bad order ratios.

EdKing

quote:

I need to research what constitutes a Bad Order, are there different levels?

Certainly. A car could be bad ordered for a simple RIP track repair for a safety appliance like a broken rung on a ladder. On the other end of the spectrum it could be a heavy bad order that might require rebuilding or result in scrapping. Obviously there is a whole lot in between.

quote:

it shouldn't come as a surprise the high percentage of bad orders on the PRR. with well over 200,000 cars on the road, far higher than any other railroad

Why would the PRR percentage of freight cars in bad order be larger than a railroad with a smaller feet? The total number might be larger but the percentage should be in line with other railroads unless things were already amiss at the Pennsy by 1950.

The high percentage would seem to indicate that the PRR either didn't have the money to fix their cars, didn't have adequate facilities in which to repair them or was holding on to cars in need of heavy repair instead of scrapping them. None of those are indicators of a well run property.

Ted-I wonder. Could the numbers of BOs on some roads also reflect out of date cars that were kept on the rosters but which needed upgrades before returning to interchange or even home road service?

Bill

They could reflect cars waiting for rebuilding. But having too many cars sitting idle for too long is a bad thing.

I don't know enough about Pennsy or other eastern road rolling stock to know if they were accumulating cars prior to a major rebuilding program. I do know that the GN conducted car rebuilding as shippers needs changed. Demand for 40 ton box cars and ice reefers declined after WWII. The GN and other western roads rebuilt cars of those types into stock cars and log cars. But, at least during the period of this snap shot, they didn't accumulate thousands of bad ordered cars waiting to start a rebuilding program. They rebuilt them or scrapped them.

I've been reading about the Penn Central bankruptcy. While that didn't happen until 20 years after this look at cars and locomotives the chart above does indicate that eastern roads had some significant problems long before the PC collapse and Conrail. This 1950 look is one piece of the puzzle. Another that involves the GN came a decade later.

Starting about 1960 the GN and NP began leasing 40 and 50 foot double door box cars. Several eastern roads had hundreds of such cars that were no longer in demand for auto shipments. Their cars were also in need of repair but their owners didn't have the cash to fix them. A third party purchased the cars and paid eastern road shops to refurbish them to suit the Hill Lines. That provided eastern railroads with cash for the old cars as well as payment for work done in their shops. The GN and NP received double door box cars that were in heavy demand by forest product shippers. The lessor received payment equal to 90% of the per diem charge. It was a win, win, win. But the eastern roads could only do that for a while before they out of grandma's silver to sell.

From my recent reading it sure looks like much of eastern railroading was doomed the minute WWII was over. The war delayed the impact of technological change from better airliners, highways, autos and trucks. And I don't mean the interstate of the 50s and 60s. I'm talking about FDR era highways carrying 1940 Buicks and L model Macks. Once gas and tire rationing were over people found much more efficient ways to move themselves and priority freight. And the end of oil rationing meant coal was going out fast as a home heating fuel. That hurt the anthracite roads. The PRR was in tough shape with a stodgy and out of touch management as well as having too many long haul passenger trains losing to airlines, too many commuter trains losing to cars and buses, too many short haul merchandise shipments lost to trucks and far too much invested in the wrong motive power technologies (electrics and duplex drive steam locomotives) to cope with the changing economics of the 1940s let alone the 50s and 60s.

While some railroads did better than others to cope with the changing times it is possible that the only thing that could have saved railroading was a massive disaster like the Penn Central. Without it there might not have been enough fear of further collapse by the politicians in Washington DC to allow railroads to get out from under ruinously unprofitable passenger operations and branch lines, let railroads and shippers negotiate their own prices and allow railroads to reduce their employment to reflect productivity gains from technologies like the diesel locomotive, computers and transistor radios.

I wonder if in another 40 years someone will put up a chart of performance indicators in the auto industry from 1990 that looks like this?

quote:

I wonder if in another 40 years someone will put up a chart of performance indicators in the auto industry from 1990 that looks like this?

Sounds like the RRs of old, the auto industry, and now banking all suffer from that "Too Big to Fail" syndrome.

The only Railway Age magazine I have is dated July 5, 1941. Most of what's in it talks about the RRs purchases of new equipment and prices of fuel and service rates going up. In 5 months the country would be at war, it almost seems like the RRs knew it was coming.

I've read that approx 60% of the population lives/lived east of the Mississippi River. I wonder if the majority of war production effort was also east of the Mississippi?

The RRs were rode hard during the war from what I've read and most likely deferred maintenance on their equipment because of the rush to get/keep the war effort going. By 1950 (and the time this report came out) I expect the equipment was worn out.

3 of the 5 RRs listed with over 10% BO are eastern RRs.

Concerning the PRR:

The PRR started elctricfying their routes beginning n 1914. Considering there were very few diesels back then, a wise chosce for the NYP-WAS main, and Philly commute operations. But for some of the other stuff they placed wires over, I doubt.

As far as steam goes, they should have gone direct to the diesel, or at least looked at what the N&W was using. The PRR owned a part of the N&W.

BTW, the Interstate system should have been paid for by tolls: If you use it you pay. Railroads have to pay for and get taxed on their ROW's!

If coal for heating was going out, how did the N&W survive?

quote:

Originally posted by DominicMazoch:
If coal for heating was going out, how did the N&W survive?

Primarily EXPORT coal, pluss metalurgical coal. To this day, NS AND CSX export coal shipments are increasing in leaps and bounds! There is a HUGE demand for their region's very high BTU per pound, high sulphur coal, in the export markets.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Hikel:
They could reflect cars waiting for rebuilding. But having too many cars sitting idle for too long is a bad thing.

Yes it could, but I've read several times of roads that kept obsolete eequipment on the books to pump up their financials, when in reality the equipment was sitting on a siding collecting rust and waiting until the day came when the company felt it could afford to write the stuff off. I was wondering if a similar game was being played with BO lists.

"Bad Order" cars were given a tag which was stapled or placed in a small holder on the car side, low near the side sill, usually near the reporting marks and weigh station data.

It had "BO" or "BAD ORDER" plainly printed on it in large letters. The matter of what the problem was would be written on the back and signed by the car inspector or the conductor who found the fault.

Cars were inspected ASAP after interchange,usually in the yard as cars were being classified or lined up for the hump. Those found with minor defcts might even be repaired where they were - bent grabs and broken stirrups could easily be fixed in a few minutes with a portable welding rig, especially if the car was loaded. Anything needing more attention was moved to the RIP track or car shop.

Cars found with brake problems, chipped flanges, cracked wheel castings or truck frames, flat spots and worn out treads were also taken care of at the RIP track. Most often such an affected the car was put up on jacks and a pair of overhauled, replacement trucks with new or refaced wheels were put under it. Brake work, being more extensive, was usually done inside the car shop.

Cars that failed on the road (burnt out bearings, broken wheels or axles, torn out draft gears, broken couplers, or damaged from derailment,) were put off at the nearest siding if at all possible.

If on a single track line an affected car could not be moved, with the dispatcher's permission from a track-side telephone, the affected car and the rest of the train behind it would be left on the track. The unaffected section then went on to the next yard.

A relief (wrecker) crew would come out with a crane to re-rail the affected car(s) and replace any bad trucks (with broken axles, wheels or lost springs) using overhauled trucks brought along on a flat car or gondola. Once out of the way, another loco would come out to move the rest of the train.

If such happened on double track, the affected car could be left there and by using crossovers (with the dispather's permissison of course), the train could pick up the rest of its cars and continue on. A relief train would be dispatched
to get the affected car.

At one time, train crews had to be able to make some repairs on the road: re-rail a derailed car, replace broken coupler knuckles and leaking air hoses, cut out (isolate in the train) a car with sticking brakes, re-brass a bad solid bearing or 'dope up' a hot box (usually by adding liquid soap to the journal oil, once it had cooled down). Train speed afterward had to be reduced because of that treatment.

The conductor would write out a Bad Order form for that car and attach it. A Bad Order car was not to be put into a train again until the Bad Order was addressed and signed off by the RIP track or car shop doing the necessary work.

Yep, lots of paper work too!
Ed Bommer

quote:

Originally posted by Number 90:
Another game played by some car shops was foreign line car repair. The car inspectors at that location would inspect foreign line cars very carefully, especially if empty, and find a reason to send the cars to the rip track for repair at the AAR rate.

There is still a lot of this going on Tom. I manage a private railcar fleet for a chemical company and am constantly seeing what I would characterize as "repairs du jour". It seems like a particular railroad will find a certain repair to it's liking and wham, suddenly it seems like every third car transiting that carrier is being bad ordered for the exact same thing. When the WILD detectors were first rolled out, it seemed nearly every other car needed new wheels. Lately, the repair of choice seems to be truck side frames.

You can also tell when an FRA inspector has been making the rounds by seeing a sudden spike in BO's at particular yards on a given railroad.

Curt

Ed, Curt,

Thanks for the "History" lessons! This is what makes this forum great.

When I was a draftsman back in the early 70s the machine shop I worked for got a contract to design/build an "oil bath" machine to impregnate blocks of (I think) rubber for journal packing.

The blocks were clamped to a motor-driven chain that was pulled down into a bath of hot oil. The blocks were squeezed prior to going under than left to expand to absorb the oil.

The bath or tank was about 6x6x6 feet and I believe it had 2 chains to fasten the blocks to.

I'm not sure if it ever got completed as I left the company shortly after they got it built. I don't know if the blocks ever replaced the packing they use to use or not.

The Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line is a local RR owned by CSX and NS. I don't think they have any of their own cars, they provide interchange and delivery for the 2 big guys. The President of the line plays golf sometimes at the course where I work. I'll have to ask him next time he comes in about who does car inspections for them, their own employees or someone from NS or CSX.

There's also a co-worker at the course who used to work for them a number of years ago, until he fell off a car roof and got part of his foot cut off by the car he was on.

Ted,
at the end of WWII, the PRR's infrastructure was shot. Beat all to heck by the enormous amount of non-stop wartime traffic over its rails. PRR management took rehabilitating the road as their top priority for expenditure, deferring rebuilds on several classes of cars. Prior to the war, the PRR had spent a king's fortune electrifying the mainline to Washington and Harrisburg. Although wartime revenue was a big boost to the PRR bottom line, its was not nearly enough to cover all the bases needed in 1946. Add to that management's decision to finally begin purchasing diesel engines in significant quantities. Therein may lie the reason for the high percentage of bad order cars.

Yes, the PRR suffered a great deal from the new love affair with automobiles. The road attempted to unload as many revenue draining branches as the government would allow, and they had a lot of branch lines. But those were slow in gaining approval from the Feds.

As for plummeting carloads for coal. That really did not happen en mass until the mid-50's.

Chris

Thanks for the info on Pennsy capital spending priorities after the war. Putting car rebuilding after track and the PRRs belated Dieselization puts some context to the PRR BO car numbers above. The high percentage of BO locomotives on NYC might also explain why Al Perlman was so busy scrapping steam locomotives when he arrived at the Central a few years later.

It is too bad that the PRR was saddled with the legacy of pre-war decisions and old school management. They desperately needed someone like Perlman. Instead, it appears that they had steam era management into the jet age. The only good thing I can see in the PC collapse it that it might have been the only thing that could have prompted the federal government allow railroads enough freedom to become truly profitable again.

I found a few short videos that I thought folks here might enjoy.

A picture worth a thousand words

Jacking a car

and a brief

Shop tour

By the time the PRR began discussing a merger with the NYC in the early 60's, the key decision makers were not seasoned railroad men, but lawyers and financiers.
A great story of this undoing is told in the book: The Men Who Loved Trains.

Ted,
Thanks for those links! Most of us non-railroaders only look at the glory side of railroading, not all the hard work that goes into keeping them running.

I can't imagine what they did back at the turn of LAST century. I guess that's where the term "strongback" came from, any time you had to use manual labor to do heavy lifting.

Bob

Glad to hear you liked them. You might also be interested in Penn Central 1974. It was produced by the trustees of the bankrupt Penn Central to help persuade the US Congress to assist the PC with government funding and regulatory reform. It has been posted before but is well worth another look. The first part shows the deteriorated condition of freight cars and working conditions in car shops. It is interesting to note that the PCs percentage of out of service freight cars was about the same as the PRR in 1950.

quote:

By the time the PRR began discussing a merger with the NYC in the early 60's, the key decision makers were not seasoned railroad men, but lawyers and financiers.
A great story of this undoing is told in the book: The Men Who Loved Trains.

Chris

Funny you should mention that. I received that book for Christmas. It makes for a good read and is a nice compliment to the earlier Wreck of the Penn Central.

The first merger talks between the PRR and NYC took place in the late 50s between Robert Young and Al Perlman from the NYC and James Symes of the PRR. Symes, a railroad man and not a lawyer, suggested the talks to the NYC. His successor, Stuart Saunders was an attorney but it is debatable who made the worst blunders. PRR railroaders seem to have been just as out of touch with reality as PRR lawyers. As for PRR financiers, well, it is amazing Bevan never went to jail.

Other than John Fishwick I haven't come across any railroad executives that rose to prominence in the last third of the 20th century that came from the Pennsy sphere of influence. There are plenty of lawyers who were also successful railroad men, Jervis Langon, Grahm Claytor and Bob MacFarlane come to mind. And there were several former NYC men who lead railroading forward. John Kenefick and Mike Flannery are just two of the noteworthy proteges of Perlaman.

The PRR has many fans. It ran through the most populated and industrialized parts of America. Millions of people traveled on it or lived near it. And it was distinctive due to its home designed and often home built locomotives and cars. It was seen as a great institution and held the esteem of many. But it doesn't seem to have been a good place to learn how to run a cost effective railroad.